Thanksgiving Treats

Happy Thursday!

OK.  PLEASE ... the next time I mention that I'm thinking of setting up playdates for the girls at our house someone kick me in the head until I come to my senses!!!  GAWD!!!  5 children aged 7 - 10 ... (4 girls and 1 boy) is WAAAAAY outside my noise tolerance range!!!  2 hours later the twitching in my left eye has started to subside *lol*

I had visions of lovely, well behaved children playing quietly in their playroom whilst I happily crafted away in my *happy place*.  Ya no.  On the bright side, the children seemed to have a good time and I DID manage to craft for 1 hour and 15 minutes ... just long enough to crack off 28 of these cute little Thanksgiving Treats for my customers this month:

You know what I'm going to say .... LOVE it!!!  Of course it took me three attempts and about 2 hours to come UP with the idea for these little guys but I got there in the end!  As I need to make more and more little treats for the bags each month I need to keep them quick, easy and fairly inexpensive.  My previous attempts either took too long to make, required more supplies than I had on hand and/or cost to much to mass produce.  These treats were PERFECT!  Inside the little folder are 3 Swiss Delice Chocolates ... a bag at Costco is (I think) $13.99 or so and you get around 200 chocolates per bag.  Perfect!  Here's a shot of the inside:

... and the back ...

These are SO easy to make!  The base is a 4" x 5" piece of Very Vanilla card stock run through the Top Note Big Shot Die:

The beauty of using these dies is that you can run more than one piece of paper through at a time.  You CAN run 4 or 5 sheets through but I like to keep it at just 2 maximum as any more than that and you get a bit of a lip on them.

Once you cut out the die you score it.  Using your Simply Scored Scoring tool is a MUST for these kinds of projects.  What use to take an hour to score now take about 10 minutes.  No measuring, no rulers, just line your paper up in the appropriate grid line and score away!

You just need to make sure that your card stock is straight.  See where my finger is pointing?  That just indicates that the lower point is in the same track/grid as the top point.  I lined up the top point on the 4" mark (it doesn't matter which mark you use ... I just picked the 4" mark) - and then I scored a width of 1/4".  See the markers along the top of the Score Tool?  They are 1/4" apart.  Oh!  Did you notice one is red and the other is blue?  No, they don't come those colors - I colored them with Sharpies.  Why?  If I am working on a project that requires scoring on more than one side of the project I use different colored markers to show my customers where to score ... so, for example, the red will indicate where they score on the long side of a card and the blue indicates where they score on the short side of the card.  Keep confusion to a minimu!

Now your project is scored - fold on the score lines:

Now you can stamp on the front, back and/or inside.  I used the wheat image from ... what else ... Wetlands!  (Have I convinced you that this set is a must have yet???)  I stamped it in Baked Brown Sugar.  I wanted to use the images from "Truly Grateful" ... the fabulous set in the mini ... but it hasn't arrived yet ... so I had to look elsewhere ... and the Wetlands set worked beautifully!

Open up the folder ... add a strip of snail to the inside and attach 3 chocolates to help hold them in place:

Close your folder and tie a 9" piece of the Baked Brown Sugar 3/8" Ruffled Stretch Trim.  This Trim is FANTASTIC!  Because it is elastic you can stretch it tight and tie it in a not securely without any fiddling or slipping.  It's the bomb!!

I then used my Tags 4 You set and Label Bracket punch to punch out the sentiment.  I used Cajun Craze.  I added a dimensional to the RIBBON and attached the sentiment to THAT so the ribbon could be removed easily to get at those chocolates.  If you attach the sentiment to the card stock it's trickier for the recipient:

Attach the sentiment and there you have it!

Seriously,  28 in 1 hour and 15 minutes! 

I have used this idea before ... a few years ago I used it for Christmas treats with a little snowman set and a bellyband instead of ribbon.  This was easier thanks to the ribbon!  I also made a Halloween one yesterday but decided to go with Thanksgiving this month and Halloween next month.  It's a great little treat for any occasion - it doesn't take much time to put together and doesn't cost a fortune.  Give it a try and hand some out.  Who couldn't use a little shot of chocolate in their day??

Right!  It's Rebecca / Mommy night tonight.  We're going to make her witch skirt for her Halloween costume so off I go!  Pop in soon to see some Christmas cards (which I HOPE to work on tomorrow!)  Until then ... have a stampy night!


Tam